Stands for supporting and displaying dolls are known in the prior art. Prior art approaches are generally characterized by their inability to display dolls in a variety of postures. Furthermore, many such stands are limited in other respects, such as their inability to accommodate a wide variety of shapes and sizes of dolls.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,915, issued Nov. 17, 1987, discloses a display stand for supporting a doll which supports a doll on a bracket extending from a vertical bar, the bracket being positioned between the legs of the doll. A strap is deployed about the upper portion of the doll to maintain the upper porion of the doll in position. While elements of the apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,915 can be tilted, there is no provision for changing the posture of the doll other than that which results from tilting of the doll body with such mechanism. In other words, a doll supported by the stand of U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,915 has a generally actionless, passive appearance.
The following patents disclose supports and display devices of even less pertinence to applicant's invention: U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,915, issued Nov. 17, 1987, U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,110, issued Jan. 5, 1988, U.S. Pat. No. 2,765,136, issued Oct. 2, 1956, U.S. Pat. No. 1,308,340, issued Jul. 1, 1919, U.S. Pat. No. 2,874,267, issued Feb. 17, 1959, U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,535, issued Jun. 30, 1981, U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,309, issued Nov. 24, 1987, U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,021, issued Jul. 24, 1990, U.S. Pat. No. 1,931,584, issued Oct. 24, 1933, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,463,437, issued Aug. 26, 1969. The various arrangements shown in these patents are generally inappropriate for displaying dolls.